DCR – Danmarks Commercielle Radio (The Commercial Radio of Denmark)
September 15 1961 – January 29 1962

DCR was on air for the very first time on September 15 in 1961. It was a competitor of Radio Mercur, which was also the inspiration and model. DCR was established by a group of outbreakers from Mercur. They wanted to show, that it was possible to make commercial radio on a high quality level, and at the same time to be a competitor of the official state radio (Danmarks Radio = Danish Broadcasting Corporation) with its public service concept (very much like BBC).
DCR did broadcast from a transmitting vessel in Øresund in the same way as Mercur did, and in that way the radio listeners in the eastern part of Denmark all of a sudden could select between 3 radio stations, all though only one of them was fully legal.
DCR ended up merging with Radio Mercur on January 29 1962.

The prehistory

After 3 years with transmissions from Radio Mercur reaching a still larger area of Denmark, commercial radio had become a succesful part of the Danish media picture. The commercials were sold on a large scale, a great number of listeners attended, og the money was rolling in to the station and especially to the founders and owners, Peer Jansen and Ib Fogh. But pressure was also growing on making commercial messages a part of the programmes in order to improve the incomee. And since the originators at the same time withdraw from the daily management to be able to live the pleasant life as Danes living abroad in the South of Europe, discontent was beginning to grow among many employees. They found that the quality of the programmes was lowering, and also a raising level of commercializing that they found difficult to accept.

The break up with Mercur

Dissatisfaction with the management and the daily operation of Radio Mercur was a long time kept internally. But in February 1961, one could read in the press that the technical chief and production manager Benny Knudsen had left Radio Mercur with plans to launch a rival commercial station. He was not the only one who was dissatisfied. Among the initiators of the new station, Danmarks Commercielle Radio, known as DCR, were several other key Mercur-people: Besides Benny Knudsen was the legal adviser Børge Agerskov, sales manager Vagn Jensen and the central program officer Hans Vangkilde. The financial assistance came from the financier Alex Brask Thomsen, who also had previously loaned money to Radio Mercur. Among the wellknown people in the DCR program were Anders Dahlerup and Nete Shreiner.

Fusion at the end
It was harder than expected to draw advertisers and listeners from Radio Mercur. DCR had a fair share of listeners in the surveys which Danmarks Radio conducted, and they showed that the two pirate radios together had more listeners than the official radio for several periods of the day. But economically it was not the expected success, and therefore DCR was forced into a merger with Radio Mercur. At the same time the pirates feared that two non-legal radio stations at one time were too great a challenge for politicians and regulators, as that they therefore faced a risk that future legislation would completely reject commercial radio. If they went along together, it was perhaps possible to convince legislators that there would be room for an alternative to Danmarks Radio.
The merger became a reality in late January 1962. In the new construction the former main characters, Peer Jansen and Ib Fogh went out while Benny Knudsen, Børge Agerskov and Alex Brask Thomsen took the reins of the merged company.

Transmitter ship "Lucky Star", former "Nijmah Al Hazz" (Arabic for 'lucky star'). Was close to the ship of Mercur in the Øresund. Equipped with a Siemens transmitter (5 kW). Following the merger of DCR and Radio Mercur Lucky Star took over broadcasts from the Øresund. Later she came to sail under the name "Kamilla Whitthøft" of Hundested and as "Vendelbo" of Aalborg. It ran aground on July 28 1971 in Sakskøbing Fjord and then was broken up.

Studies

The studies was placed in Hvidovre, and sales department was in central Copenhagen.

Programs

DCR adopted internal rules that limited the spread of advertising in programs, and advertisements were placed more discreetly, than was the case of Radio Mercur. The radio was broad casting new popular music, classical music and entertainment.